ABSTRACT
International relations often adopt a broadly functionalist view of regionalism: states create regional organisations to address shared problems. However, faced with the unprecedented global health emergency of COVID-19, regionalism in the Americas largely failed to produce regional goods during the pandemic’s first year. The shortfall in regional cooperation emerged from a conjunction of conditions in place preceding the pandemic’s outset. We apply a framework of ideology, leadership, and interactions across three time periods: just before the pandemic, during the first year of the pandemic in 2020, and subsequently during 2021. Fragmented visions of regionalism, weak leadership will and capabilities, and adverse interactions among major powers darkened the inter-American panorama. The United States and Latin America approach regionalism through distinct ideal-typical models – as a “protectorship” or partnership for the United States, or as confederative or relational regionalism in the case of Latin America. While technical cooperation still played an important role, high-level political reticence and competition over scarce resources dampened initial regional responses to the pandemic. A reassertion of US regional engagement in 2021 has produced greater, though still uneven, inter-America regional cooperation, though heavily reliant on US whims and fragmented by ad hoc extra-regional interactions.
